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Sexual Reckonings: Southern Girls in a Troubling Age
Susan K. Cahn
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Description for Sexual Reckonings: Southern Girls in a Troubling Age
Paperback. A tale of adolescent girls coming of age in the South during the most explosive decades for the region. Focusing on the period from 1920 to 1960, it reveals how both the life of the South and the meaning of adolescence underwent enormous political, economic, and social shifts. Num Pages: 384 pages, 19 halftones. BIC Classification: JFSJ1; JHBK5; JM. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 228 x 154 x 25. Weight in Grams: 524.
Sexual Reckonings is the fascinating tale of adolescent girls coming of age in the South during the most explosive decades for the region. Focusing on the period from 1920 to 1960, Susan Cahn reveals how both the life of the South and the meaning of adolescence underwent enormous political, economic, and social shifts. Those years witnessed the birth of a modern awareness of adolescence and female sexuality that clashed mightily with the white supremacist and patriarchal legacies of the old South. As youth staked its claim, the bodies and beliefs of southern girls became the battlefield for a transformed South, which was, like them, experiencing growing pains. Cahn reveals how young women, both white and black, were seen as the South's greatest hope and its greatest threat. Viewed as critical actors in every regional crisis, from the economic recession and urban migrations of the 1920s to the racial conflicts precipitated by school desegregation in the 1950s, female teenagers became the conspicuous subjects of social policy and regional imagination. All the while, these adolescents pursued their own desires and discovered their own meanings, creating cracks in the twin pillars of the Jim Crow South-- racial purity and white male dominance--that would soon be toppled by the student-led civil rights movement. Sexual Reckonings is an amazingly intimate look at a time of deep personal exploration and profound cultural change for southern girls and for the society they inhabited, a powerful account of the clash between a society's fears and the daily lives and aspirations of its most prized, and unpredictable, population.
Product Details
Publisher
Harvard University Press United States
Number of pages
384
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2012
Condition
New
Weight
523g
Number of Pages
384
Place of Publication
Cambridge, Mass, United States
ISBN
9780674063938
SKU
V9780674063938
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
Ref
99-1
About Susan K. Cahn
Susan K. Cahn is Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York.
Reviews for Sexual Reckonings: Southern Girls in a Troubling Age
Cahn traces female adolescence in the South from the flapper era through Elvis Presley and rock and roll and the budding civil rights movement, and the vast differences that race and class made in the judgment and treatment of female adolescent behavior. She examines the particularly volatile mixture of race and class for which the South has become famous, as the society struggled to control girls
black and white
to maintain racial purity and social conventions. This is a fascinating look at how young women fit into and affected southern patriarchy and notions of racial purity.
Vanessa Bush Booklist 20070401 Susan K. Cahn offers an empowering, well-researched, and refreshing look at the South's transformation from the period of 1920 to 1960. She relies on anecdotal evidence of countless adolescent girls, integrating their narratives with the larger narrative of Southern political, economic and cultural change...From poor white girls targeted for reform to wartime pickup girls to the rock 'n' roller, Cahn gives readers an insightful understanding of history that will leave you intrigued, indignant, entertained and even confer value on anyone who has suffered injustices, nourishing the possibility for change.
Sofia Marin Feminist Review As public policy wars over morality rage unabated, the bodies of teenage girls and young women remain the battleground, making this book an urgent read...Cahn weaves the experiences and voices of girls from all classes and both black and white communities to show how girls used economic, social and cultural capital to redefine Victorian moral codes and pursue sexual experiences once viewed as the preserve of men.
France Winddance Twine Ms. 20070601 This work makes a useful contribution to the growing field of the study of girls.
E. Thompson Choice 20071101
black and white
to maintain racial purity and social conventions. This is a fascinating look at how young women fit into and affected southern patriarchy and notions of racial purity.
Vanessa Bush Booklist 20070401 Susan K. Cahn offers an empowering, well-researched, and refreshing look at the South's transformation from the period of 1920 to 1960. She relies on anecdotal evidence of countless adolescent girls, integrating their narratives with the larger narrative of Southern political, economic and cultural change...From poor white girls targeted for reform to wartime pickup girls to the rock 'n' roller, Cahn gives readers an insightful understanding of history that will leave you intrigued, indignant, entertained and even confer value on anyone who has suffered injustices, nourishing the possibility for change.
Sofia Marin Feminist Review As public policy wars over morality rage unabated, the bodies of teenage girls and young women remain the battleground, making this book an urgent read...Cahn weaves the experiences and voices of girls from all classes and both black and white communities to show how girls used economic, social and cultural capital to redefine Victorian moral codes and pursue sexual experiences once viewed as the preserve of men.
France Winddance Twine Ms. 20070601 This work makes a useful contribution to the growing field of the study of girls.
E. Thompson Choice 20071101